Infinite Moments
by ebonyandunicorn
Summary: Sequel to Intimate Strangers. Helen Cutter has disappeared, but the events of her brief return have left Nick shattered. Claudia wants to comfort him, but she doesn't know how. Connor's feelings for Abby leave him with a difficult decision, and Stephen does his best to move past his injury, and to convince himself that lying to a woman he once loved was the right thing to do.
1. Not Even A Little Bit

**NICK**  
Whatever he had been doing that week, whichever creature had appeared through an anomaly and torn through London, Nick Cutter always made time to visit the cemetery to lay flowers every Saturday evening. It had been just under two months since the death of Evelyn Faye. There had been no official funeral paperwork for her, no obituary in the newspaper, because she had not officially existed in this universe. She had remained there only long enough to work her way into Cutter's heart, and then she had sacrificed herself to save him from a predator, and now she was gone.

He rose from kneeling beside the grave and turned away to head back to what passed for home. He was still living with Stephen, but the tension from earlier had dissipated somewhat now that the dealings with Helen were out in the open, and after what Stephen had done in trying to save Cutter, yet again. Not for the first time, Cutter reflected on the fact that a lot of people seemed to be willing to make sacrifices for him lately – Stephen, Evelyn, Claudia. He was entirely sure that he did not deserve it.

_Claudia_. If there was one other name besides Evelyn's that could instil in him such a difficult jumble of emotions, it was that of Claudia Brown. The day after Helen's return and Evelyn's death, he had kissed her. Or maybe it had been the other way around. Or both. It didn't matter. What mattered was that since that day, they had exchanged no words beyond those required by their jobs – purely professional discussions about creatures and anomalies and things that Lester wanted Cutter to do that Cutter didn't want to do. There had been no mention made of the kiss. As far as Cutter knew, Claudia was still engaged. He wasn't sure if they had set a date. He didn't particularly want to know. He hadn't met her fiancé and had no plans to do so.

Just as he turned the car on to head home, his phone buzzed. Cutter pulled it open and read the short text from Captain Jones: _Anomaly, North London. All personnel report to CARI for urgent debrief_. That was probably for the best. Cutter's mood was always a poor one after visiting Evelyn's grave, and more often than not Stephen was feeling down as well. They had spent many a night sitting in silence, neither wishing to intrude upon the griefs of the other. Then again, on other days, when Stephen had been doing well with his prosthetic, they would talk animatedly. They would discuss the latest creature or theory and laugh at whatever trouble Connor had found himself in recently, and it would almost be like old times – before the predator, before Helen, before everything.

**STEPHEN**  
As it happened, Stephen had been spending the night sitting in silence. After years in a wheelchair, he had begun to wish fervently that he would never have to sit down again, but it was hard learning to walk again, and he needed to rest more often than he would like. Today had been a good day, though, and he was feeling good despite his exhaustion. He was waiting for Cutter to get home so that they could continue the previous night's discussion of the raptors they had had to deal with several days ago.

He'd offered to accompany Nick to the cemetery, but he had turned Stephen down, as always. Stephen offered out of habit now more than anything else – he didn't ever expect Cutter to want company. That was fair enough; Stephen wasn't offended. He did worry, though, about the professor. There were lines in his face that hadn't been present before Helen's return.

_Helen_. Even the thought of her was enough to hurt. He had told himself time and time again over the last two months that he had done the right thing in tricking her to save Cutter and Claudia. He knew that, if he had the chance again, he would do the same thing. It had been more than right; it had been necessary. He told himself that he felt nothing for Helen, that she deserved what she got and more. That didn't make it any easier, though, when he remembered the way her voice had broken when she'd asked him why. He had never meant to hurt her.

When he received the text from Jones, it was a welcome distraction from what was becoming a very difficult line of thought. Cutter had taken the car, so he went outside to wait for him. It was a joy to walk down the hall of his house instead of wheel himself, to not have to reach up to open and close the doors. When Cutter pulled up in front of the house, Stephen could simply step into the car instead of having to manoeuvre himself in and pull the wheelchair after him. On some days he struggled and was frustrated with the slow pace he had to take, but on others, like today, he was simply overjoyed to be able to walk at all. It was almost enough to make him forget about Helen.

**CONNOR**  
For the third time in two months Connor had recently been thrown out of a house. After he'd left the flat to make room for Jones, he'd had to beg two of his friends to let him stay with them, but that hadn't lasted long. The first had moved into a smaller place, the second had got a girlfriend, and now Connor was back to sleeping in his office on a beanbag, feeling sorry for himself. There were three things that were wrong with this: firstly, beanbags were incredibly uncomfortable as beds; secondly, if he was ever discovered it would be hideously embarrassing; and thirdly, but most importantly, sometimes CARI's internet was so slow it made him want to cry.

At that particular moment Connor had his laptop balanced on his knees and was halfheartedly working on that month's report for Lester. The sci-fi channel was showing a Star Wars marathon, though, and so far he hadn't gotten past the first paragraph. When they cut to an ad break, his mind began to wander to his current problem of homelessness. Maybe he would ask if he could move in with Cutter and Stephen; they'd been living together for a while now. They probably wouldn't accept him, though. He hated Jones for putting him in this position, and he hated Abby a little bit too.

_Abby_. That, of course, was a lie. He could never hate Abby, no matter how many times she walked down the hallways of CARI on Jones' arm, or disregarded Connor's orders in favour of the captain's on a field mission, even if Connor was bending over backwards trying to keep her from harm. He cared about her and he was pretty sure that she knew it. Even Connor knew that he wasn't the most subtle person on the planet. She had to know that he felt something for her beyond the realms of regular friendship... If she did, though, she didn't care; she had Jones in her flat to keep her warm, even if he didn't always keep her safe.

The anomaly alarm began to sound and Connor snapped shut the laptop, holding it tightly under one arm as he dashed out of the office towards the detector. Jones beat him to it; he already had his phone out and was sending a mass text to all of CARI's employees. "North London," he said as Connor approached. "Nothing's come through so far, but I'm marshalling everyone just in case." Connor nodded. Jones may have been unbearably arrogant most of the time, but he was good at his job. Connor was equally good at his own, of course. The only problem was that Abby didn't seem to care. She was a Fieldwork girl now, and she had not looked back.

**ABBY**  
Her face lightly streaked with sweat, her breathing even, Abby finished up the final few moves of her kickboxing routine and then allowed herself to relax. Jones was at CARI – his position as the leader of the fieldwork team meant he had to be in every day – but that didn't mean she was going to sit idle. She pushed her hair back from her face and went to run a shower, flushed from the workout in the already-hot flat. She'd worried at first that Alex would complain about that, even though she'd explained to him that it was necessary for Rex. Fortunately, though, he hadn't minded. And if he used it as an excuse to walk around dressed in very little, well, it was only fair that she didn't complain about that in return.

She was under the hot water for a longer time than usual; Alex wanted her to grow out her hair, but it took a long time to get all the tangles out after she'd been exercising. Abby didn't mind, though. It was worth it to hear her boyfriend's compliments. When she'd finally worked out the knots in her hair and scrubbed the sweat from her skin, Abby dressed and stepped out of the bathroom – and very nearly tripped over the bag full of stuff she'd forgotten she'd left there. It contained various belongings of Connor's that he'd forgotten to take when he'd moved out. She'd intended to return it to him for months now, but she always forgot to take it when she went into work.

_Connor_. What was she going to do about him? Every time they had a conversation outside of work-related things, it always trailed off into one awkward silence or another. She would ask him how it was going living with a friend, he would ask her how it was going living with Jones, and then the conversation would come to a very sudden halt as she began to feel guilty about kicking him out and he began to feel guilty about making her feel guilty. There was always something awkward or uncomfortable about their conversations; the ease with which they had once talked was now gone. Once again, she'd intended for a while to do something about that. She missed the fun they'd used to have.

Breaking her out of her reverie was the buzz of her mobile phone. She flipped it open, read Alex's text, and then rushed to grab everything she'd need before heading out of the flat – keys, wallet, various Fieldwork supplies. At the last minute she remembered to grab the bag full of Connor's stuff. It would probably sit in the boot of her car for another few months before she remembered to actually give it to him, but it was a start, at least.

**CLAUDIA**  
For the first time in a while, Claudia was actually up to date with her work. The recent raptors had been a pain, but Jones' team was efficient and they'd managed to round up the raptors without too much trouble. In any case, most incidents now seemed tame by comparison to the _Megalosaurus _incursion two months ago. They hadn't lost men since then – or women, for that matter. Remembering Evelyn's sacrifice filled Claudia with sorrow. She hadn't gotten to know the girl very well in the short time Evelyn had been in their world, but nobody deserved to die the way she had, and she had saved Claudia and Cutter from certain death.

But if Claudia felt sorrowful when she remembered Evelyn, it was nothing compared to what the girl's death had done to Cutter. Even with Dr Shepard keeping a close eye on him, Claudia could see that he still blamed himself. She was realising that it was Cutter's first instinct in such situations. A long time ago, she had visited his office and he had confessed to her that he thought Helen's disappearance was his fault. The same thing had happened when Stephen had been bitten by the _Arthropleura_. Each time Nick had blamed himself, and Claudia hadn't known how to help him. She still didn't.

_Nick_. Whenever she thought of him, a horrible conflicting feeling overtook her – guilt and relief and hopelessness and longing. She had kissed him, or the other way around, despite the fact that she was engaged and he married. Regardless of who his wife was and whether they would ever see her again, it had been wrong. She had a fiancé. Whatever she felt for Cutter paled in comparison to her love for Jem. Didn't it? Claudia told herself that they had kissed purely out of relief; they had very nearly died. She had missed him while he had been away and she had been scared that he would leave again. She had kissed him to stop him from leaving, or he had kissed her to reassure her that she never would. Whatever the reason, they had certainly not followed up after it, and she could almost put it entirely out of her mind.

Almost.

Just as she was packing up to leave her office, the detector sounded its alarm. _Of course_, Claudia thought with a sigh. Just as she caught up on paperwork, another anomaly appeared. She followed the others down to the detector; Connor and Jones were there already. "What is it?" she asked. Back to business as usual. She put her feeling about Cutter back in their almost-forgotten compartment, and focused on her work.


	2. Sleeping Well

**NICK**  
Dealing with a flock of raptors loose in a football field was just as exhausting as it sounded, and it was almost midnight before the battered team returned to the ARC. Miraculously, they'd managed to round up all the raptors and get them home just before the anomaly closed, but it had still taken a long few hours to chase them in and out of the many rows of seats in the dark. Now, of course, Lester wanted a full report, but he had ever so graciously agreed to let the team go home and sleep first. Cutter, who had dropped by his office to collect something before returning home with Stephen, was on his way out when he spotted something unusual.

Connor was also in his office, but unlike Cutter he showed no intention of leaving. The door was ajar, giving Cutter a full view into the office and at Connor... who was sprawled out over two beanbags, fast asleep.

Cutter knocked on the door. "Connor. Hey." When the only response was for Connor to sniffle and half-roll over, Cutter entered the office and knelt beside him. "Connor. Wake up." He gently shook Connor's shoulders until the young man gave a reluctant groan and opened his eyes.

"Morning, Professor. Wait... Professor?" Connor bolted upright, their foreheads almost colliding. "Hey! What are you doing here? Erm... Did I oversleep?"

"You fell asleep, yeah," Cutter said. "In your office. Come on, it's nearly midnight. You need to get home."

"Oh." Connor's face suddenly took on a sheepish expression. "Heh. Yeah, about that, Professor..." He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding Cutter's eyes. "Uh... I'm sort of spending the night here. You know. Just for a little adventure. Thought it'd be fun. I promise not to break anything!"

Cutter looked Connor over properly and realised that he was wearing soft pyjamas and had a blanket draped over himself. The professor paused, then looked around the office. It was larger than the rest, and the second half of it had been converted into a den – complete with something in the corner that looked suspiciously like a laundry hamper. "Connor," Cutter said slowly, "are you living here?"

"No," Connor answered defensively, too quickly to be telling the truth. "Erm. Well, sort of. I've been kicked out of my mate's place... again. But, you know, it's really all right sleeping here. You get used to the beanbags after a while."

"Do you sleep here often?" Cutter asked.

Connor squirmed. "Every once in a while. After Jones moved into the flat I was here for about a week. Then I moved in with my friend Jake, but he threw me out after a few weeks, so I slept here again for a while. Then Fred put me up, but he's got a girlfriend now, and he likes her better than me, so I'm back here." He adjusted the blanket around his legs, looking very self-conscious. "It's okay, though, Professor, really. I'll find someplace else to go."

"Lester would kill you if he found you here," Cutter said, looking around again.

"Probably," Connor agreed.

Cutter let out a long sigh and stood up. "You'd better come with me."

Connor stared at him. "Seriously? Would Stephen be okay with that?"

Cutter looked him over. "In the short term. Maybe. If you ask him nicely. I guess we'll have to see."

* * *

Cutter's prediction turned out to be true, though it was easy to see that Stephen wasn't incredibly enthusiastic about opening up his house to yet another lodger. Even after Connor's agreement to sleep on the couch and his fervent assurances that he never left his dirty boxer shorts on the bathroom floor anymore, Stephen was very quiet on the long drive home, and left it to Cutter to show Connor around the house. Altogether, it meant that it was a long time before Cutter could finally make it into bed, and longer still before he fell asleep.

He did not dream. Dreaming had never been his style; his brain worked without rest whenever he was awake, so it didn't have the time to think up elaborate fantasies while he slept. Instead, what kept Cutter awake was the various problems that refused to leave his head before he fell asleep. In simpler times they had been evolutionary puzzles that he and Helen would discuss late into the night, but now his mind was filled with an entirely different woman and the sort of sentimental, sappy thoughts that his younger self would have gagged at. Claudia Brown.

He wondered what she would think if she knew how often she was in his thoughts, and came to the conclusion that it was better that she didn't. If she had wanted to follow up on their last kiss, she would have. The fact that she had not – that they had not spoken about anything more than their work – said to him very clearly that she felt nothing outside the realms of professional towards him. With a short sigh, Cutter vowed, as he did every night, to put what they may have once shared behind him and move on. It was not an easy thought, and it kept him awake long into the night.

* * *

The following morning, Cutter, Claudia, Connor, Jones, and Lester gathered in the meeting room to present the report on the previous night's incursion. Cutter, who had arrived unshaven and fashionably late just to annoy his boss, sat back in his chair and listened in silence. "... eight raptors," Jones was saying, "but we managed to round them up and ship them back home. No casualties, one slight injury – sprained ankle – but he'll be fine. No witnesses."

"We were lucky," Claudia added. "It could have been much worse."

"Hm." Lester folded his arms and glared across the table. "Professor Cutter. Anything to add?"

"No."

"Very well. You're all dismissed. Connor, you still owe me this month's report. Professor Cutter, do try and arrive on time when you bother to turn up at all, won't you?"

Cutter only smiled and shook his head as he left the meeting room. He was on his way back to his office when he heard someone call out to him.

"Cutter."

He froze at the voice and turned around quickly. "Claudia?"

"We need to talk."

Cutter sighed, assuming it was about his tardiness. "I'm not really in the mood for a lecture right now. I'm sorry I was late; I had a long night."

"We all did," she answered. "I wasn't going to tell you off."

"Oh." Cutter scratched the back of his neck. "Then... what did you want to talk about?"

"Helen." Claudia folded her arms. "I want to know if you think she's gone for good."

Cutter rubbed at his eyes, wishing that he'd slept better so that he could feel more prepared for this conversation. "Come to my office," he said wearily, and led her down the hallway. He'd acquired the office after all the events surrounding Helen's appearance, as well as clothes, a mobile phone, and all the other things he'd left behind in the other universe. He took a chair at his desk; Claudia sat opposite him and spoke before he had the chance.

"It's been almost two months now," she said briskly, "and we haven't seen or heard anything from Helen at all. Despite that, we're still on full alert, you're walking around as though on eggshells, Lester gets jumpy every time we mention a woman anywhere near an anomaly site, and I –" She broke off quickly, looking away from him. "I just want to know," she finished. "How likely is it that she'll return?"

Cutter leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long few moments. "Helen can be very determined when she wants something," he said eventually. "The first time she came back, she wanted company. This time, she needed someone with the aura. If she finds someone like that elsewhere..." Another Evelyn, he thought hopelessly. "...maybe she won't come back because she won't need me. I think I made it clear that I'm not exactly going to go gently."

Claudia grimaced. "So, do you think she will find someone else?"

"I don't know," Cutter answered honestly. "I don't know enough about the aura. I don't know how common it is, if it's hereditary, how you can tell who has it, whether a person who does have it would be willing to go with Helen at all..." He made a hopeless gesture with his hands, the antimetal bracelet on his wrist flashing as it caught the light. "If Evelyn were here, she could tell me," he muttered. "But I just don't know."

"You have the aura, don't you?" Claudia asked softly. "Are you able to run tests on yourself?"

"I have been," Cutter replied. "Dr Murphy is working with the government to get permission to sequence my DNA. Once that happens, we can analyse it and compare it to the standard human genome for any differences that might indicate biologically whether someone has the aura or not. Then we only have to developed a test that can give a definitive result for people. Every member of CARI's staff needs to be tested, starting with the Fieldwork team. I wish Evelyn had had the chance to look people over, but..." He shook his head. "I wish a lot of things. It doesn't matter now."

"You sound like you're doing a lot of work," Claudia remarked.

"Yeah." Cutter held up the wrist that had the thick antimetal bracelet on it. "Connor's being investigating this, too. He's been working with one of the geologists in Research to figure out its exact composition and properties, and whether we can replicate those using a metal from our universe." He cut himself off, smiling a little, ruefully. "Sorry. It's just good to feel as though we're making progress. Our research on the anomalies was getting a little stagnant, so it's nice to have something else to work on."

Claudia smiled. "Do you ever take a break?"

"I remember to sleep, sometimes." At Cutter's words, Claudia's smile vanished. He watched her raise a hand to her temple and look away from him. "Hey," he said gently. "You okay?"

She smiled again, but it was stretched this time. "I don't sleep well when I'm stressed," she admitted quietly. "It's not a big deal. It's getting better."

He leaned towards her, elbows on the desk. "What are you stressed about?" he asked, concerned. "Is it Helen?"

"No," she answered quickly, not looking at him. "Well... yes. I'm not stressed about her, exactly; I just... I dream about it, sometimes. I've been talking to Dr Shepard about it, and it is getting better. She just says it will take time."

Cutter sat back and ran a hand over his face. "I'm so sorry," he said hopelessly. "You should have told me. I... Claudia, I'm so sorry." He looked at her, even though she refused to return his gaze. "Can I do anything to help?"

"I don't think so." She looked as though she was regretting bringing it up at all. "It's fine, Cutter. Don't worry about me."

"It's not fine," he answered in a low voice. "It was my fault this happened in the first place, and now... I wish I could do something. Anything. She should never have been able to grab you like that; I should have stopped her."

"Cutter." Claudia stared at him imploringly. "Don't worry about me. I mean it."

"Why shouldn't I worry about you?" Cutter shot back, regret and anger making his voice rise. "Claudia, you were practically kidnapped and killed, and now this." He sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have come back," he muttered bitterly. "It's done nothing but cause trouble for everyone else."

Claudia dropped her gaze, and he wondered what she was thinking. On impulse, he asked her. "Do you wish that?" he asked. "Do you wish that I'd never come back?"

Slowly, very slowly, she raised her gaze to meet his own. He saw the gentle shadows under her eyes that no amount of make-up could hide, and the lines in her forehead that had not been there when they had first met. He saw the marks of stress and worry and lack of sleep that had been caused by this project and by him. He wondered if she regretted agreeing to it all in the first place, if she regretted their very first kiss in the hotel all those years ago.

"No," she said, very quietly. "I don't wish that."


	3. Conclusive Proof

**CONNOR**  
Having survived his first night at Stephen's house with minimal fuss, Connor was feeling good as he entered CARI's meeting room, even if Cutter had told him he intended to be late just to annoy Lester. When the meeting concluded, Connor hurried to his office to finish up the report Lester had demanded. It was, he reflected, more convenient to simply wake up in the office, but it was much more comfortable to sleep in a proper house, even if he had been confined to the couch.

While his computer booted up, Connor spun circles in his desk chair and whistled tunelessly to himself. All too soon, though, he was metaphorically thumping his forehead against the less-than-half-finished report that was already three weeks overdue. Scanning through tables of statistics and paragraphs detailing the latest research, Connor gradually sorted them all until they were more or less presentable. Just as he was preparing to send the final thing to Lester, there was a knock on his door and one of the members of the Research team entered.

"Hey, Stuart. What's up?" Connor greeted him.

The young geologist crept into the room and held out a stack of paper. "The lab report on the antimetal came back," he said in his soft voice. "I haven't looked through it yet. I thought you might want to be the first."

"Thanks." Connor flipped briefly through the papers, nodding enthusiastically. "Awesome. Do you have a digital copy of this? Forward it to the rest of the team, and get them all to read through it. We'll have a meeting after lunch to talk it over; I'll let everyone know." He turned away from Stuart to send a brief email to the members of Research Division who had been working on the antimetal. "Did they send us back the sample?" he asked as he typed.

"No," Stuart answered. "They used it all. Destructive analytical techniques."

Connor turned back to Stuart, surprise on his face. "Really? That seems a little careless of them. After all, it's not like we have an endless supply of the stuff." In Evelyn's pocket they had found five small samples of antimetal; Cutter had kept all but one locked away in his office, with the fifth given to Connor for analysis. After Connor had done all he could with it, he'd sent it away to the lab. "It was a big piece, too," Connor added. "What did they do, vaporise it?"

Stuart gave a little shrug. "I don't know. They didn't say."

"It'll be in the report, I guess." Connor tapped his fingers on the desk, his forehead creased in thought. Cutter wouldn't be happy to learn that they'd lost a piece of the antimetal, even if he wasn't doing anything with the samples he had besides keeping them locked away. Sometimes, Connor privately wondered if that was a good idea; every time an anomaly opened, he couldn't help but think of the antimetal that Cutter could use to close them. Still, Connor was the last person who would ever force the professor into anything, especially if it meant drawing his own blood. The grizzly ritual Helen had made Evelyn go through still made Connor shudder when he thought about it.

"Anyway," he continued, picking up the stack of paper, "I'm going to give this a read-through now. I'll see you and the rest of the team at one-ish, yeah?"

"Sounds good." Stuart nodded and held up a hand in an awkward goodbye wave, which Connor returned. Soon afterwards he had the office to himself again, and he busied himself reading through the long report sent by the lab.

* * *

The hours gradually slouched on as Connor attacked the report with a highlighter and a search engine, struggling to make sense of the many long and complicated geological terms. The more specialised geologists on his team would be able to understand them much better, but from what Connor could tell, the main gist of it all was that antimetal was unlike any metal found naturally on Earth. The piece was in fact a pure sample of an entirely new element that topped the Mohs scale, but had negligible thermal and electrical conductivity and was only averagely dense. This unusual combination of properties meant that it didn't fit in properly anywhere on the Periodic Table, and all of the scientists at the laboratory sounded more excited than people who are excited about things.

Connor skipped lunch in favour of rereading the report and only remembered the meeting he himself had scheduled when one of the members of Research Division knocked on his door. "Right! Yeah, coming." Connor hurriedly shut down his desktop computer and grabbed his laptop and the stack of paper, then joined his fellow researchers in the meeting room.

They spent the better part of three hours going over the details of the antimetal report. The geologists among them were every bit as excited as the lab scientists at the new discovery. "This discovery could revolutionise the whole idea of Earth science as we know it," a young woman named Linda was saying enthusiastically.

"Is it really Earth science, though?" Stuart put in softly. "It's more like Terra science. The most likely explanation is that Evelyn's universe is made up of an entirely different elemental spectrum to our own."

"Not quite," Connor corrected him. "Terra doesn't have antimetal either. Remember, Evelyn found the anchor in a different universe. We're assuming she found the individual antimetal pieces there too, but that isn't necessarily the case." In fact, they weren't sure if Evelyn had found the pieces of antimetal herself, or if Helen had found them and given them to her. Not for the first time, Connor wished that Evelyn was still alive and could give them this information herself.

"Wherever it's from, it's fascinating stuff," Linda murmured, her eyes on the display being projected on the wall. The projector was hooked up to Connor's laptop, which had the digital copy of the antimetal report open to a page of photographs. "Even in photos it's almost impossible to look at. It's like it's trying to draw you in."

"The physics regarding that is really fascinating," said a man called Ross from across the table. He was a professor of physics who had worked more closely with the scientists in the lab than any other member of Research Division. "The absorption spectrum for antimetal is completely unique – obviously – but it's also unusual. The behaviour of its electrons in their excited states is really, really strange." He went on to describe some of the more complicated physical and chemical properties of antimetal in a lengthy spiel that had half the team enthralled and the other half bemused. Connor, who belonged to the latter half and didn't appreciate it, eventually cut Ross off with the all-important question:

"Any idea of what allows antimetal to help open and close the anomalies?"

Professor Ross shook his head at that, his enthused expression fading. "No," he said after a short pause. "There was a lot of research done on its magnetic properties, but they're just as baffling. It appears to function like a superconductor, expelling all external magnetic fields, but it doesn't need to be cooled below a critical temperature. In fact, above a temperature of a few hundred degrees, it spontaneously _gains_ ferromagnetic properties – almost like the reverse of a Curie temperature. That's unheard-of in substances on Earth."

Connor stared at the physicist. "I only understood about half of that."

"Basically, antimetal is unlike every other element we've ever studied," Ross said. "There's no way we can learn everything about it in such a short time. This –" he tapped the hardcopy of the report that sat in the centre of the table "– is only the briefest outline of its physical and chemical properties. It's the tip of the iceberg. We don't know enough about the anomalies to know exactly which properties we should be examining in further detail."

"Well, start with magnetism," Connor said, "because we at least know that the anomalies have something to do with magnetic fields. Then we can –"

"There's a problem," Ross said.

Connor raised his eyebrows.

"We'll need a new sample. The last one was used up during the analysis."

"Right," Connor said. "I'd forgotten. Is there any particular reason why that happened, by the way? Surely you have the ability to test this kind of stuff without destroying the thing you're experimenting on. We don't have an infinite supply of antimetal, you know. Professor Cutter's only got four more pieces, and he keeps them locked away in his office."

Ross shrugged. "Then get ahold of one of them," he said. "It's the only way. Without that sample, we'll never unlock the secrets of the antimetal – and maybe the anomalies."

* * *

The discussion wound down after that, and Connor emerged from the meeting room with a headache and more questions than he'd had going in. Still, he felt confident that they were getting somewhere. They had to be – there was no away that amount of research could possibly not be useful. Even if they didn't have concrete answers to anything yet, it would only be a matter of time. Though he would have to go and bother Cutter for another sample of the antimetal fairly soon.

On his way to Cutter's office to report to the professor, Connor passed through CARI's central room, where the detector was. He saw Francesca standing over it with her fingers on the keys; there was nobody else around. "Was there an alert I missed?" Connor asked, striding over to her.

She jumped and spun around quickly, a surprised expression on her face, as though he'd snuck up on her. "Connor! You scared me." She smiled at him, linking her hands behind her back. "No, no alert. Everything's fine. I was just checking something."

"Oh. Right." Connor let his gaze wander briefly over the detector, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. "What were you checking?"

"Oh, nothing. Just giving it a general once-over. Pretty boring stuff. Maintenance work. It's fine, though. I was just heading out. See you, Connor." She gave him a little wave after her rambling speech and skipped away quickly. Connor watched her go with a frown of confusion; Francesca spoke so fast it was hard to keep up with her a lot of the time.

As he headed to Cutter's office, Connor promptly forgot about Francesca as his brain became swallowed up with the antimetal research and all the unanswered questions that surrounded it. He was trying to sort it all out in his head before presenting it to the professor, but he hadn't formulated more than an introduction before he was knocking on Cutter's door.

"Come in."

Connor entered, holding the paper copy of the antimetal report in his hands and his laptop under one arm. "The antimetal analysis from the lab came back," he said.

Cutter stood up and took the report, flicking through it in much the same way as Connor had. There were almost a hundred pages full of facts and figures; Connor could see from the professor's expression that he found it just as confusing, which bolstered Connor's confidence a bit. "Give me a summary," Cutter commanded. "Twenty-five words or less."

"They've no idea what it is or what it does," Connor answered. "Basically all they know is that it's like no other element on Earth. It's got all kinds of weird properties, but they don't know how those properties combine to help create or close the anomalies."

Cutter frowned. "Did they find out anything at all?"

"Only that it's super strange. I told Professor Ross to run some more tests on its magnetic properties, since we know that magnets and anomalies are linked in some way." Cutter nodded. "But there's something else." Connor chewed his lip and hesitated. "The techniques used in the lab to figure out all these properties used up all of the sample they had. They need another piece to run more tests."

Cutter stared at him. "They can't have another piece," he said. "We only have four, with no possible way of getting any more. We already gave them the biggest one – it was the size of my thumb at least. How could they possible have used that all up?"

"I don't know," Connor replied honestly. "They did some pretty crazy stuff, though... heated it to temperatures of a couple of thousand degrees, floated it in all kinds of crazy liquids, tried to scratch it with a diamond – which did nothing, by the way." He tapped the sheets of paper in Cutter's hands. "It's all in there. I don't know how useful a lot of it is, but it has to help us in some way, right?"

Cutter looked down at the papers in his hands. "I guess we'll find out."

* * *

Connor stayed in Cutter's office until it was time to head home, talking through the report as Cutter read it over. They were barely a third of the way through it when Stephen turned up and knocked on Cutter's door. "Are you ready to go?" he asked. "Both of you?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," Cutter said, grabbing his jacket from his desk and standing up. "Connor, you got all your stuff?"

"The rest of it's in my office. I'll meet you two at the car." He sped out the door and back down towards his office, not wanting to risk annoying his new housemates. On his way, he passed the detector again. He looked it over carefully, but saw no sign that it had been damaged or tampered with in any way. He was ready to forget all about the incident with Francesca when he rounded a corner and saw her again.

As it happened, what Connor saw then wiped all thoughts of the detector from his mind.

Francesca's long, dark hair was obscuring her face as she tilted it away from Connor, towards the man to whom she spoke. Captain Alex Jones, Abby's boyfriend of over a year, was murmuring something in a low voice into Francesca's ear. Connor was too far away to hear what it was, but her answering giggle was just loud enough to reach his ears. He watched Jones tug playfully at one of Francesca's curls and run a finger gently along the line of her jaw. Connor swallowed; to his inner ear, it sounded as loud as a growl of thunder.

Jones looked up suddenly as if he'd somehow managed to hear it, and Connor quickly ducked back around the corner, panting hard as though he had run a mile. He heard a quiet murmuring from around the corner, but it was impossible to make out their words. When they'd been silent for a while, he judged it safe and peered back around the corner again.

Depending on the definition of 'safe', it could well be said that he had been very wrong.

Francesca and Jones were kissing; there were no two ways about it. It only lasted a second, but a second could be a very long time when you were staring a dinosaur in the face or watching your best friend's boyfriend cheat on her, and even Connor was not blind enough to miss that. After that very long second, Jones pulled away from Francesca and moved down the corridor in the opposite direction to Connor. Francesca was still for a moment more before turning around and disappearing into her office.

Connor was still breathing like he'd run a marathon, and he stayed rooted to the spot for a while, replaying the scene he had just witnessed over and over in his head. A single question sprung to the fore, eclipsing all thoughts of detectors or antimetal research. It remained on his mind all throughout the evening, and would continue to haunt him long after that.

_What do I say to Abby?_


	4. Maybe It Was Just A Cry For Help

**NICK**  
"Come on," Stephen said from where he stood by the door.

"Just a second." Cutter pulled his keys from his pocket and opened the locked drawer in his desk. It didn't contain much – Evelyn's ARC file, a few sentimental photos he kept hidden away from everyone, a letter from the university that he should have replied to ages ago, and four small samples of the material that made up the anchor around his wrist. They were all roughly spherical, smooth on the surface and cool to the touch; the biggest was the size of a fat marble, the smallest no larger than a pea. Cutter's gaze moved slowly over the antimetal, his fingers unconsciously brushing the bracelet on his wrist. It was beautiful in a very dark, strange kind of way. Cutter remembered what Connor had said: that the antimetal was like no element on Earth.

Remembering Connor's words jolted Cutter from his reverie. He picked up the smallest sample of antimetal and shoved it into his pocket to pass onto the lab team, then grabbed the papers they'd prepared and nodded at Stephen. "Let's go."

They walked in silence to where Stephen had parked; Cutter was still without a car. He'd been offered one on loan from the ARC, but he only ever used it for travelling to anomaly sites. "Can I ask you something?" Cutter said as they swung into Stephen's car. They'd already devised the unspoken rule that Connor was always to sit in the back seat.

"Of course," Stephen replied.

Cutter leaned against the windowsill as he tried to figure out a way to phrase it. "Claudia asked me it first, today," he began.

"Okay."

"She wanted to know if I thought Helen would be back."

There was a very long pause during which Stephen glanced over at Cutter, then stared out his own window the moment Cutter moved to return his gaze. "What did you tell her?" he asked eventually.

Cutter shrugged. "I told her it depends on what Helen wants."

Stephen nodded. "Which is?"

"I don't know." Cutter looked at the anchor around his wrist. "It's anyone's guess. I gave up trying to figure out what Helen wanted a long time ago; she changes her mind every day. She's fickle." He sighed. "Look, we know she wanted the company of someone with the aura so that she could travel to different universes through the anomalies. I don't know how many people with the aura there are on Earth, but if there are others and Helen wants one badly enough, she'll find them. But if she decides she wants the anchor, she'll come back. If she wants the ARC's research, she'll come back. If she just wants to make our lives hell a little bit more, she'll come back." He shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't know, Stephen."

"Then what makes you think I do?"

Cutter looked at him. "You know what."

Stephen grimaced. "Cutter, look, I..." He swallowed and turned away. "I know nothing more than what you do, all right? Helen and I... Well, I haven't seen her any more than you have over the past twelve years. I didn't know her any better than you did."

"That's evidently not true," Cutter said pointedly.

Stephen's face took on a pained expression, but he still didn't return Cutter's gaze. "Nick..."

"Forget it." As abruptly as he'd brought it up, Cutter dismissed the issue. He went through phases, on and off, of wanting to know exactly what had happened between Helen and Stephen and wanting to sweep it all under the carpet and never talk about it again. "Let's just hope she's done with us and decides to stay away."

Stephen nodded, and they remained silent until Connor joined them.

"About time," Cutter said, turning around in his seat to lecture Connor. He changed his mind when he saw Connor's expression, though; he looked as if he'd seen a ghost. "You all right?"

"What?" Connor stared at him, his eyes wide. "Oh. Oh, right. Yeah. Fine." He settled into his seat, hugging his laptop to his chest. Cutter frowned a bit, but didn't press him on it, and all three of them were quiet on the way home.

"I'm gonna read through this," Cutter said, waving the lab report as they got out of the car. "Connor, I'll talk it over with you when I'm done."

* * *

By the time Stephen had readied dinner, Cutter still hadn't managed to read all the way through the report. His head was buzzing with numbers and statistics and strange facts about antimetal all through their meal, so it was a quiet one. Connor was heavily distracted by something – Cutter assumed it was the lab report – and Stephen was tired out after the raptor chase the previous night. Though he'd had his prosthetic for several months now, he still didn't participate in many field missions. The only reason he'd helped with the raptors was because they'd been relatively closely contained in the football stadium.

"Connor," Cutter said when they were finished, "come to my room and talk through the report with me."

Stephen's spare room had been well and truly taken over by Cutter's presence. It was dominated by an enormous wooden desk piled high with papers. Butcher paper was tacked over all over the walls and covered in scribbles, calculations, and diagrams. He'd unpacked a few of the boxes Stephen had kept from his house; almost every flat surface that was not taken up by paper had a model or a fossil sitting on top of it. "Whoa," Connor said, looking around in awe. "Do you ever sleep?"

"More than some people," Nick muttered. He picked up the lab report from his desk and held it out to Connor. "How much of this is actually useful to us? Realistically?"

"Um..." Connor took the papers and shuffled them nervously. Cutter took a seat at the foot of his bed; Connor went to claim the desk chair, but it was covered with still more paper. Perching nervously against the desk, Connor said, "It depends on what you mean by 'useful'. I mean, a lot of it's really interesting stuff –"

"You know what I mean," Cutter said. "How much of it is going to help us with the anomalies?"

Connor grimaced. "Well, that's the thing. We really don't know. Stuff like specific heat capacity and molar mass could end up being useful once we figure out what the anomalies actually are, but..."

"But until we know more about the anomalies themselves, none of this means anything." Cutter let out a frustrated sigh. "We're getting nowhere with this. I thought the antimetal research would actually help us learn something, but it feels like we know just as little as ever. If only Evelyn..." He trailed off and gave another sigh, but this one was not born of frustration. "No point wishing, I guess," he said.

Connor tentatively held out the report, and Cutter accepted it with a smile. "Thanks, Connor. I'll finish up reading this and talk to you more about it tomorrow. Oh – before i forget." He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the pieces of antimetal. "Give this to the lab team. Tell them that it's the last piece they're going to get, so for God's sake, don't blow it up this time."

Connor nodded, closing his fist around the strange material. "Will do." He walked to the door before hesitating and turning again. "Um... Professor? Can I ask you something?"

"Mhm," Cutter murmured, not looking up from the report.

"It's, um..." Connor cleared his throat. "It's about girls."

Cutter was properly shocked at that. He looked up at Connor with a bemused expression on his face. "Connor," he began, "you're asking me for advice about girls? I don't exactly have the best track record, you know. My wife left me eight years into our marriage to go day-tripping through every era of the world's past."

"Oh. Right." Connor winced. "Um... Should I try Stephen, then?"

Cutter tilted his head. "You could try, I suppose. I don't know if I would personally trust his judgement."

Connor opened his mouth to ask, remembered, and closed it again quickly with a blush. "Right," he said again. "Sorry. I'll, um... I'll just ask someone else. Later, I mean. Don't worry about it."

Cutter nodded slowly, and watched him go with a small smirk.

* * *

He lay awake at night, as had become his habit. Also by habit, he was thinking of Claudia. This time, he was wondering what she was doing right at that moment: whether she had managed to fall asleep by now, only to wake from another nightmare about Helen. His wife. The guilt threatened to overwhelm him. He was used to blaming himself for things he could never have prevented... and he was used to having Claudia tell him it wasn't his fault, just as Stephen had done when Helen had disappeared. Now, she could only tell him not to worry about her – which he did, of course, incessantly.

He stared up at the ceiling, the only surface in his room that wasn't covered with scribbled notes and diagrams. The plain, white plaster was blank and quiet, a stark contrast to his racing thoughts. He was angry at Helen, worried that she'd make another appearance. He'd promised Claudia once that she would never reappear to cause them trouble. He'd been proven wrong, so he wasn't going to promise that again.

What Cutter wondered now was what he would do if Helen did return. The frightening thing about the anomalies and Helen's superior knowledge of them was that there was no way of keeping her away forever. They could arrest her and send her to prison, but it would be difficult to explain the imprisonment of a woman who had been legally dead for several years, and Cutter had a feeling that a jail cell wouldn't hold her for long. There was really only one long-term way to keep Helen from interfering, and Cutter knew that he would never be able to go through with it. Helen herself had said as much when he'd held a gun to her in the yard months ago: You wouldn't have the guts.

It was true. He could never kill anyone, including – perhaps especially – his wife. He knew nobody would ever ask him to; Claudia would probably have been shocked if he'd told her he'd even been thinking about it. That meant, though, that they would have to constantly be looking out for her. She's got all of time and an infinite number of parallel universes to explore, he thought. Maybe, just this once, she'll leave us alone.

He hoped it was true. He doubted it was.


	5. A Symptom of Mild Concussion

**CLAUDIA**  
She was trapped. It was dark and the air was thin; she was struggling to breathe and something was pressing hard against her back and the tops of her shoulders, pinning her down. The surface beneath her was cold and hard and smooth, and there were noises outside – screams and gunshots and the terrible croaking of the future predator. And she could not see.

Blindness, always the blindness. Regardless of the fact that the pteranodon attack had been years ago now, in her dreams Claudia was often unable to see, just as had been the case back then. Sometimes someone would take her hand and lead her, but it was never a friend; it was never the man who had saved her life when she had been blind, all those years ago. All too frequently now she dreamed of Helen Cutter holding her wrist and dragging her along, but in this particular dream something was pressing down against her back and shoulders, pushing her forward at an awkward angle.

It was too much. She was trapped and blind and terrified. She opened her mouth to scream.

_"Nick!"_

A moment later, she was awake. Claudia lay in her own bed, breathing hard, staring up at the ceiling. She could see again, and the sunlight creeping through her curtains was painfully bright to her eyes. What time is it? Claudia wondered, rolling onto her side to check the clock on her bedside table. 6:15am. Someone touched her shoulder. She flinched and almost shrieked, turning around quickly to see who it was.

"Jem! God, you frightened me."

"Are you all right, love?" asked her fiancé. His tone was concerned, but Claudia detected a hint of reservation as well.

"Fine," Claudia answered, running a hand over her face. She did her best to smile at him. "Sorry. Must've had another dream."

Jem bit his lip as he stared at her. "They must be working you too hard."

Claudia shook her head, sitting up and stretching. "I am working hard," she said, "but it's nothing I can't handle." If only you knew, she thought. Jem had no idea about the events that had transpired two months ago, the abduction attempt that was causing her nightmares. Nor did she plan on telling him about it. She slipped out of bed and went to run a shower.

Later, when she was sitting on the edge of their bed, brushing her hair out in long strokes, her fiancé asked, "Who is Nick?"

Claudia jumped so violently at the unexpected question that she snagged a lock of hair in the brush and almost tore it from her scalp. "Ow." She wrestled with her hairbrush, cursing, for a few moments before she replied to Jem. "Um, Nick's someone I work with. Why do you ask?"

"You were calling out his name in your sleep."

"Oh." Claudia swallowed, wincing at the sudden and very awkward declaration. "Um... Was I? That's weird. I don't remember him being in my dream." It was technically true; Cutter never made an appearance in her nightmares, though her thoughts during them were often concentrated on him.

Jem wasn't looking at her, a sure sign that he was upset. Her fiancé was terrible at hiding his emotions. "Jem," she began, reaching over to brush his sleeve with her fingers, "I'm sorry. Cutter's just a colleague. I don't know why... I mean, there's no reason..."

"Don't worry about it," he replied, folding his fingers over her own. He glanced up at her, a nervous smile on his face. "I'm not going to get mad at you over a dream. I just worry about you, that's all."

"You shouldn't," Claudia replied, her voice firm. "I'll be fine." She hadn't allowed Cutter to fuss over her, and she wasn't about to let Jem do it either. She could and would handle this on her own. "Anyway, I'd better get to work." She kissed him goodbye and headed out the door before he could argue with her.

* * *

The moment she entered CARI that morning, Claudia found herself in the middle of a heated dispute. Cutter was on one end of it, which wouldn't have been too out of the ordinary, except that instead of Lester, it was Connor whom he was arguing with. "Look, it wasn't me!" the younger man was protesting fiercely. "I'm a good housemate, I promise. Abby taught me the ropes when I was staying with her. I would never –"

"Forget it," Cutter said when he saw Claudia approaching. "The lab team will be waiting. Go." Connor glanced from Cutter to Claudia as if contemplating appealing to her, but eventually gave up on that idea and scampered off towards Research Wing.

"What was that about?" Claudia asked, watching him go.

Cutter let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "Connor's staying with Stephen and I for a while," he answered. "We haven't exactly house-trained him yet."

Claudia's mind was filled with amusing images of the three men living together – two of them taciturn and aloof, the other incredibly nerdy and comically overeager. "How'd that come about?" she asked Cutter curiously. "I thought Connor was staying with a friend after he moved out of Abby's flat."

"Yeah, well, apparently that wasn't a long-term arrangement." Cutter shrugged, a small smirk on his face. "It's not so bad. We've press-ganged him into doing the washing-up every night."

"Wow, I'm jealous. Maybe I'll have to find an overexcitable palaeontology student to come live with me."

"Bad luck," Cutter replied. "Think we managed to snap up the only one."

"Damn," Claudia said with a smile. She noticed the large stack of heavy hardback textbooks Cutter was carrying under one arm and raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realise you'd gone back to university, Professor."

Cutter followed her gaze and grimaced at the books. "I've somehow got to become an expert on magnetic field theory in the next twenty-four hours," he said. "The antimetal report from the lab came back, but I hardly understand any of it. Connor and I both agree that the magnetism component of the research is the one most likely to be relevant, but I don't know enough about magnetism in our own universe, let alone whichever one the antimetal came from." He shifted the books to his other arm. "The lab team swear it's fascinating – it has properties unlike any other element on Earth – but from what I gathered, nobody actually knows what those properties could mean."

"It sounds like hard work," Claudia commented.

"It is." Cutter nodded, his gaze suddenly sharper. "Speaking of which, how have you been sleeping?"

"Fine," Claudia answered automatically, raising a hand to her brow. Cutter took on a disbelieving expression and she had to smile, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. "Okay. Not exactly fine. But it's... it's nothing I can't handle." The same words she had used on Jem that morning. She really, really didn't like appearing weak in front of people, and she was determined to work this out herself.

"What does Dr Shepard say?" he asked.

"Nothing I hadn't already guessed for myself." She looked away from him. "The dreams are most likely triggered by trauma, stress, fatigue, or a combination of the three. They'll go away with time. They are getting better, really. I sleep through some nights without any, now."

Cutter's expression had moved from skepticism to concern. He was quiet for a few moments, staring into her face until she dropped her gaze. "Why don't you take some time off?" he suggested after a while.

Claudia rolled her eyes. "Because without me, this place would fall apart. You and Lester would be at each other's throats – same goes for Connor and Jones – and all of you would be behind on your reports." Not to mention the fact that I'd go crazy stuck at home with nothing to do. "Trust me," she told him, her voice as light as she could make it, "I wouldn't gain anything from not coming to work. Speaking of reports, I'm sure Lester would like to be informed about the antimetal research. Can I rely on you to fill him in, or do I have to go hassle our poor palaeontology student?"

Cutter's lopsided smile warmed her more than it should have. "The latter," he replied, tapping the cover of one of the books under his arm. "I've got research to do."

Claudia sighed theatrically and folded her arms. "Fine. But I'll tell him it's because you're slacking off, so don't be surprised if you find a whole host of unwashed dishes by the sink tomorrow morning."

He laughed outright at that, and brushed her cheek with his fingers before he left.

* * *

As promised, she went by Connor's office to hassle him about preparing something for Lester about the antimetal research. On her way, she passed Lester himself, who informed her that Connor also hadn't submitted his report for the previous month. Smiling to herself, Claudia promised her boss that she'd tell Connor to get it in by that afternoon, and continued on her way.

She passed the detector, where a young woman with curly brown hair was standing beside an older man. The two were whispering to each other in low voices. Claudia, who recognised them both from Research, smiled and waved at them as she passed. Francesca returned her smile, though the man – a physicist of some description; his name eluded her – did not.

She reached Connor's office and knocked on his door before entering. Connor was sprawled on his back over his beanbags, reading the thick stack of paper he was holding above his face. He glanced over to her and chirped a hello before returning to the report. His laptop was open on the floor beside him; numerous heavy books like the ones Cutter had been carrying were scattered all around.

"Hi, Connor," Claudia said, moving hesitantly into the room. To put it mildly, the place looked like a bomb had hit it. "Have you had a flock of raptors through here recently, or some such thing?"

"What?" Connor looked up at her, then followed her gaze to the clothes and books that were strewn all over his desk and floor. "Oh. No, actually, I'm in the middle of, erm, spring cleaning. I moved in with Stephen, so I was just organising all of this to take to his place. Not that it's been here for a while, or anything." He hopped off the beanbag and walked over to her, having to make several awkward jumps to avoid stepping on books or pairs of jeans. "Sorry. What did you need?"

"It's not me who needs it, it's Lester. April report. More than three weeks overdue. Ring any bells?"

"Right." Connor winced. "It's actually done, I swear. I've just got to send it off. I would've done it yesterday, but I got distracted by this." He held up the papers he'd been reading.

Claudia caught the word antimetal printed a few times. "Lester wants a report on that, too," she told him. Smiling at the way Connor's whole body slumped, she added, "How's the research going, by the way? I saw Cutter earlier and he sounded, well, not as enthusiastic as he could have."

Connor nodded, looking glum. "It's raised more questions than it's answered. Instead of helping us learn more about the anomalies, it's just illustrated how much we really don't know." He ran a hand through his hair. "I gave Professor Ross a second sample today; they're going to run more tests and hopefully figure something out."

"Don't push yourself too hard," Claudia said gently. "You're doing everything you can."

"It's just frustrating," Connor grumbled. "There's no way to speed up the process without knowing more, and there's no way to know more without slogging through the process. Meanwhile, we're sitting ducks out here for whenever a T-Rex decides it'd be a good idea to charge through an anomaly."

Claudia grimaced. "Don't say that."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Claudia replied. "I'm sure you'll work something out. Just make sure you get those reports done, or Lester might charge you through an anomaly." She turned to exit the office, stepping over a discarded t-shirt emblazoned with the Star Wars logo.

"Claudia?" Connor said from behind her.

She talked back to him. "Yes?"

Connor looked a little sheepish, shuffling the papers in his hands. "Um... Are you busy? I need your help with something."

"Of course." Claudia smiled at him. "What do you need?"

"Okay." Connor set the papers down on his desk and looked at her very seriously. "Say you've, um... Say you've got this friend. A girl. But she's not a girlfriend, you know, she's just a girl, even if you maybe wanted her to be your girlfriend – but she's not – just a friend who happens to be a girl, and –"

"Connor," Claudia cut in. "Breathe."

"Sorry." Connor paused to take a breath. "So, this friend of yours. Say she's got a boyfriend, and they've sort of been going out for a while. Which is fine. You're happy for her and everything, even if you think he's a complete..." He coughed. "Um. Anyway, she likes him a lot, and all of that."

"Right..."

"Yeah." Connor nodded several times. "So, here's the thing. Say you saw this boyfriend of hers, and he was, um, with another woman." He took another breath. "And they were, um, kissing."

Claudia felt a shiver race up her spine.

Connor looked at her nervously, like he was worried she was going to shout at him. "That's – that's pretty bad, right? Kissing someone when you're dating someone else?"

She was silent for a long time.

"Claudia?"

March. Her office. Him about to leave again, to keep her safe. Her hand on his sleeve, her lips on his – there were lots of phrases she could have used to describe that moment, but 'pretty bad' had never been one of them. But Jem, her fiancé... did that mean it was bad? She knew Connor was talking about Abby and Jones, but it could all too easily be applied to her own situation. _That's pretty bad, right? Kissing someone when you're dating someone else? _"Yes," she forced herself to say. "Yes, I suppose it is."

Connor nodded. "Okay," he said. "Okay. So... What now?"

"What?"

Connor scratched his ear. "Do I, um... tell my friend? You know, that J – that he was kissing someone?"

"Oh." Claudia stared at him, a fresh wave of dread settling into her veins. Nobody knew about the kiss that she and Cutter had shared, except for Dr Shepard – but she knew everything, and was legally obligated not to tell anybody else. Even so, the idea of anyone telling Jem – sweet, kind, hopeless Jem, who knew nothing about her work or how she felt and couldn't deal with conflict to save himself – made Claudia feel ill. "No," she said quickly. "Don't tell her. You never know; maybe he regrets that kiss. Maybe he only kissed her for a very special reason; maybe it was only once and will never happen again. I mean, everyone makes mistakes, right? That doesn't mean he doesn't love her anymore. Maybe it was just a mistake, and he's trying to forget that it ever happened."

She was rambling. She cut herself off and turned away. "I need to go... report to Lester," she said quickly, already halfway out of the office. "Don't forget that report!" Before Connor could call after her, she shut the door behind her and walked quickly away.


	6. Mutually Exclusive

**CONNOR  
**He had never considered himself a people person, but even Connor had to admit that there was something very strange about how Claudia had reacted to his question. Perhaps she'd simply seen through his lame attempt at keeping it hypothetical and was wondering whether to tell Abby herself. In some ways that would be for the best; it would save him the trouble, while saving Abby from potential future embarrassment. Then again, perhaps Connor was the one misinterpreting things and the kiss between Francesca and Jones had not been serious. It would not have been the first time Connor had gotten something very wrong when it came to social interaction... especially the romantic kind.

With a short sigh, Connor settled back and focused on the antimetal report. Sometime after lunch he remembered the April report he had to present to Lester, and quickly read through it before he attached it to an email and sent it away. Even the joy of getting that burden off his shoulders wasn't enough to extinguish his disappointment over not getting anywhere with the antimetal research; nor was it enough to completely quash his indecision surrounding the relationship Abby and Jones.

He'd definitely seen the captain kissing someone else. That was cheating, right? That was wrong. Nobody deserved to be cheated on, _especially_ not his Abby. She'd had her fair share of horrible men in her life; the last thing Connor wanted was to see her get hurt again. Regardless of what Claudia had said, Connor also knew that the kiss between Jones and Francesca was neither their first nor their last. Now that he was more aware of it, he noticed the little interactions between them over the next few days – smiling and then avoiding each other's gazes when they passed in the corridors; sitting slightly too closely together at mealtimes whenever Abby wasn't around. He didn't catch them kissing again, but whenever Jones brushed his fingers along her skin or bent to whisper in her ear, it became obvious to Connor that there was something going on.

Eventually he came to the conclusion that he was going to have to do something about it.

That being said, Connor was not a stupid man. As close as he and Abby were as friends, he knew that she probably didn't trust him as much as she trusted her boyfriend, so he couldn't just go to her and tell her what he thought. Nor did he have the guts to confront Captain Jones about it; Jones was the head of the Fieldwork Division, almost a full foot taller than Connor. He was broad-shouldered, with muscled limbs, and he knew how to use a gun. For a few days Connor was stumped as to how to work the situation out. It was only during a meeting with the lab team that he realised what he had to do.

He was sitting opposite Francesca at the table, and it dawned on him to simply confront her instead. Francesca was a computer scientist and mathematician – she was almost as clever as Connor, but she was nowhere near as strong or dangerous as Jones. Connor began to plan out exactly what he would say to her in his head. He'd corner her after the meeting and...

"Connor?"

"What?" He'd zoned out of what Professor Ross was saying completely. "Sorry. Try it again?"

The grey-haired professor sighed sharply through his nose, his blue eyes flashing with impatience. "I was saying, Mr Temple, that our next step in the research process involves exploring the interaction between the antimetal and the blood of a person with the aura. We will require Professor Cutter for this, obviously."

"Hold on," Connor said, a frown creasing his brow, "you can't go cutting him open just to experiment. What if you accidentally open another anomaly?"

"Then we close it," Ross replied. "We know that the antimetal has the power to do both things effectively; we simply lack the knowledge as to exactly _why_."

"But you can only use a single piece of antimetal to either open or close an anomaly," Connor argued. "Not both. It's too risky. There's no way Cutter would allow it."

"I shall ask him myself," Ross answered. His voice was quiet but made it clear that he would brook no argument. Connor's frown did not abate, but Ross did not seem to care. "If that's all, this meeting is over. I need to return to the lab."

Connor nodded and the research team began to broke up. Suddenly remembering what he'd decided to do, Connor looked up sharply in time to see Francesca's slim form exit the meeting room after Professor Ross. Connor jumped up and ran after them, catching them just before she rounded a corner. "Hey. Francesca. Can I have a word?"

She waved goodbye to Ross and looked up at Connor, her face all spots and smiles. Connor supposed that she was cute, in a freckly sort of way, but she was nowhere near as pretty as Abby. "Sure," she replied. "What's up?" Even if Abby was prettier, Francesca was no easier to talk to. Connor found himself utterly lost for words as every plan he'd made for this moment spontaneously flew out of his head.

"Er..." Connor blinked down at her. _Focus. Jones. _"I've got a question... about the two of you. What's going on between you and him?"

Francesca's smile vanished and she folded her arms. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yes you do," Connor said. "You know exactly who I'm talking about. I've seen you both together. You're with him all the time, whenever you don't think anybody else is watching."

Francesca's eyes flicked around the corner before returning to Connor. "I don't know what you mean," she said again, more emphatically this time.

"Yes, you do!" Connor insisted. "So, tell me... is it serious? Because if it is, I'm going to have to tell everyone. What you're doing isn't fair. It's – it's wrong."

Francesca glanced around the corner again before she took a step towards Connor. "Listen," she said in a low voice, "if you know what he and I are planning, then you know to stay out of our way. We have friends powerful enough to make things difficult for you if you turn us in. Besides, who would believe you? He's worked here for almost as long as you have, and he's years older; people trust him." The cuteness Connor had seen earlier was gone, replaced by something distinctly more frightening. "I don't know how you found out about this, but if you tell anybody else, you'll be sorry. Now go, before I tell him you said anything."

Connor stared down at her in shock, having been utterly unprepared for a response like this. He had absolutely no idea how to reply to it, either. He could only nod and walk away, glancing back at Francesca a few steps later. She was conversing with Professor Ross, their faces close together and wearing identical frowns. For a confused moment Connor wondered what Ross had to do with this – _is she kissing him too?_ – before Cutter called out to him from the other end of the corridor, and he had to put it out of his mind.

* * *

"They've finished sequencing my DNA," Cutter said.

Connor looked at him with wide eyes. The blood sample had been taken several days ago, but he was impressed at how fast it had all happened from there. "So what happens now?" Connor asked excitedly. It felt as though they were actually making progress for once. "Have they found anything?"

"Not yet," Cutter replied. "They'll call me if anything interesting comes up, but they're just sorting through the data now – it could take a while." He glanced at the report Connor held in his hands from the meeting with the research team. "How's it going with the antimetal?"

"Um." Connor shuffled his papers nervously. "They want to explore the relationship between the antimetal and the blood of someone with the aura."

Cutter's face took on the same frown that Connor's had upon first hearing the news. "But they could create an anomaly."

"I thought about that, too," Connor agreed. "But that could sort of be useful in itself, couldn't it? That way, they could study the anomalies, the aura and the antimetal all at once."

"Yeah, except that there's the slight risk of a creature coming through the anomaly and killing us all."

Connor winced. "Well, yes. There is that."

Cutter nodded, looking very serious. "We're not having a repeat of what happened the last time someone used blood to open an anomaly," he said firmly. "Tell Professor Ross and the rest of the team that they're not using my blood – or anyone's, once we develop a test for the aura. They'll have to find another way of getting the information we need."

"Okay," Connor replied.

"Keep me posted," Cutter ordered. "And I'll let you know if they find anything in my sequence."

* * *

It took another few days for Connor to get over his initial shock at Francesca's reaction. He hadn't known what he had been expecting, but it wasn't that. Maybe her and Jones' relationship went deeper than he'd first thought. Whatever it was, he would definitely have to come up with some other way to tell Abby about the whole thing. Of course, that would mean that Francesca could potentially make good on her threat to make him sorry. So Connor dragged his feet on it, flinching whenever he passed Francesca in the corridors of CARI, grimacing whenever he saw Jones and Abby together. May rolled into June, the scientists worked on the antimetal and Cutter's DNA without seeming to get anywhere, and Connor continued to hesitate.

On the third day of June, an anomaly opened, and the entirety of CARI breathed a sigh of relief.

Almost everyone turned out to deal with the anomaly, which had opened up on a beach south of London. It had been weeks since the last one, and everybody in CARI was going stir-crazy, desperate for something to do; Fieldwork Division long for creatures to deal with, Control Division wanted eyewitnesses to shepherd around, and Research Division was desperate for something to break the monotony of their two projects because they weren't getting anywhere with either of them.

It was on their way back from dealing with the anomaly that Connor finally decided he had to tell Abby about Jones for good.

"Did you see the way Alex caught that _Sapeornis_?" she was saying eagerly. "He chased it halfway up a tree."

"Right." Connor was leaning his head against the window, fighting the urge to smack his head repeatedly against it. "Where is he now?"

"He's agreed to stay behind and help with cleanup," Abby replied.

"Right," Connor said again. Half of Research Division, bored out of their minds with their work, had turned out to see the anomaly (against Lester's orders). Francesca had been among them. He closed his eyes and spoke without looking at her. "Abby, there's something you should know..."

"Hm?"

"It's, uh, about Captain Jones." He felt her take her eyes off the road to glance at him, but didn't open his eyes. "I saw him kissing someone," he blurted out, before he lost his nerve. Once that was said, it was impossible to stop. "He's cheating on you. He doesn't deserve you. I'm sorry I had to tell you but I thought it was better that you found out from someone you liked instead of –"

"Connor." The venom in her voice was enough to make him open his eyes, though he couldn't quite pluck up the courage to return her gaze. He could practically feel the anger radiating out from her. "Look, I know you don't like my boyfriend, but this is a bit rich, even for you."

He gaped at her. "You don't believe me?"

"Course I don't. Alex wouldn't do this to me." Abby's voice was low, certain, and furious.

"But he did," Connor protested weakly. "He does. I saw him kissing Francesca McKay at CARI about a week ago, and then I confronted her about it and she got really weird, but she definitely knew what I was talking about. She, I don't know, threatened to make my life really uncomfortable or something if I told anyone, but I thought you'd prefer to hear it from me."

"Well, you _thought_ wrong." They'd reached CARI; Abby cut the engine and leapt out of the car before Connor could reply, slamming the door behind her hard enough to make the whole vehicle shake.

"Abby, wait!" Connor ran after her. "Look, I'm telling you the truth! Just ask him yourself."

Abby whipped around to glare at him with such force that he stopped in his tracks. "Save it, Connor," she hissed. She turned around again and left him there.

Connor blinked after her, unable to figure out just where he'd gone wrong. "All right," he muttered eventually. "All right. If you won't believe me, I'm just going to have to find proof..."

* * *

The next time he saw Francesca, she was standing once more at the keyboard of the Anomaly Detection Device. That in itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary; she was a member of Research Division, and was probably running calibrations of some kind. It was the way her fingers were flying over the keys that gave Connor the idea. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. Computers.

Every member of CARI had their own laptop and email address. Surely there would be some form of proof in Francesca's email account of the affair between her and Jones. Connor went to his office, shut the door behind him and opened up his laptop, pulling up the CARI staff files. What he was doing wasn't exactly legal, but if anyone caught him he would just have to lie and say he was testing security or something. There was nothing in Francesca's file that was incriminating, so he pulled up his email client and typed in her username, then drummed his fingers on his desk while he thought. Now he had to figure out her password.

He tried all the usual stuff: _password, 1234, qwerty_, and various combinations of her first name, surname and birthday. Francesca was just as much of a computer person as he was, though, and she wouldn't have been stupid enough to make it that obvious. It would have to be something that nobody else could possibly guess. Something secret... Connor snapped his fingers. He typed in _alexjones_.

Ding. He was in. Connor laughed and patted himself on the back before flexing his fingers and staring at the long list of emails in front of him. After a moment's thought, he grabbed a USB stick out of a drawer and plugged it into the laptop, then typed the command that would copy every sent and received message out of Francesca's account and onto the USB. A download bar popped up: _3 minutes, 47 seconds remaining_. Connor settled back into his chair and watched the counter tick down, trying to shake the feeling that he was doing something very wrong.

When the counter reached 33 seconds, it suddenly froze. A warning message popped up: _Data transfer aborted. Loss or corruption of data may have occurred_. Connor cursed. If Francesca was as good with computers as she appeared to be, it was possible that she'd set an alert on her phone or something that would notify her if someone logged into her email; she must have stopped the transfer somehow. Connor pulled up the list of emails and cursed again. Most of the files were corrupted and impossible to read. He rubbed at his eyes – _Why is this so hard?_ – and scrolled through the long list until he finally found a few that were mostly readable.

At last, he found what he'd been looking for. The file had been partially erased; there was no author or recipient information, but the text in the body was clearly readable: _My office, Wednesday, 3pm. Don't be followed. –F_

"Yes," Connor whispered. He looked at the clock; it was three in the afternoon exactly. Maybe this wasn't so hard after all. He shut the laptop and ran from his office in search of Abby. Exactly ten seconds later he was skidding to a halt in front of her door and throwing himself in without knocking. Clutching at a stitch in his side, he gasped, "Abby, I've got it. I've got proof – about Francesca and Jones."

She didn't even bother to look up from her computer. "Not interested, Connor."

"Come on!" Connor begged. "They're together right now. You have to hurry, Abby. Her office. Come on, let's go!"

Glaring at him, Abby slowly closed her laptop and walked to the door. "Connor," she said in a voice cold as ice, "if this is just some sort of sick joke, I'm never going to speak to you again as long as I live."

"It's not a joke. It's the real thing. I swear on my computer. Now come on!" He led her back to Research Wing to a closed white door with Francesca's name written in small letters across it. "Here," he muttered, tilting his head towards the door. He closed his fingers around the handle. "You ready?" he asked in a whisper. Abby simply glared at him. With a small shrug, Connor flung the door open and stepped inside.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a man's voice shouted.

Connor stared at him with his mouth wide open. "P-Professor Ross?"

"You!" Francesca shouted, standing up and glaring at him even more powerfully than Abby had. She had been sitting at her computer; Ross was on the other side of the room with his face in a book. There was nothing that they were doing that could be called the slightest bit compromising... and Captain Jones was nowhere to be seen.

"But that's impossible," Connor protested. "What – what are you doing?"

"We are working," Ross thundered, "on our antimetal research, as you should be. I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you need to get out right now before I call security. This is a closed meeting concerning only myself and Miss McKay. I assure you, Mr Temple, if we discover anything of significance, we shall be sure to let you know. Now get out."

Connor looked at Abby and shuddered at the expression on her face. "Okay," he said, holding up his hands. "Okay. I was wrong. Sorry, Francesca, Professor. I'll, um... I'll just go... do... work." He crept out of the office and closed the door behind him, bracing himself for what Abby was going to say.

"Connor Temple," she breathed, "I don't know what you were thinking, but if you ever say something so filthy about my boyfriend again, I will pummel you to within an inch of your life." He held his breath, waiting for the rest of it, but she didn't say anything more. Connor turned around to try and make some attempt at an apology, but she was already gone.


	7. Conspiracy – I

**THE CONSPIRATORS**  
"That was too close," Professor Ross muttered, shaking his head. "We've got to find a better place to meet – or at the very list remember to lock the bloody door."

"It's that creep Connor," Francesca growled. "He keeps poking around the main room. I think he might have seen me at the ADD before, and he said he's seen us together as well. It's like he's watching me or something." She shuddered. "It's gross. If he weren't trailing around Jones' girlfriend like a puppy so much of the time, I'd think he just wants to get in my pants."

"He's seen us?" Ross asked, his white brows knitting together in a frown.

Francesca nodded. "He cornered me about it a few days ago. I think I managed to threaten him into not saying anything. I have no idea what that debacle was about, though." She nodded towards the door through which Connor had burst in.

Professor Ross stood up and began pacing, his hands linked behind his back. "We can't allow any of them to know what it is we're doing here," he said. "How goes your work with the detector?"

"Not as well as I'd like. Connor has so many back-up drives and failsafes installed, I can't keep it offline for nearly long enough just by pulling the plug. The whole system's password-locked, too, but my decryption program's broken through most of it already." She linked her fingers together on the desktop in front of her and smiled. "It shouldn't be too long now. Have you found us a location?"

Ross tilted his head. "I have several," he replied, "but I've not yet made a final decision."

"And the samples?"

Professor Ross took his hands out from behind his back and held one out to Francesca. Staring down at the glimmering piece of antimetal, he said, "The rest of the team was successfully fooled. Nobody but us knows that I split the first piece in half and only allowed them to destroy one through their bumbling incompetence." His tone was scathing. "I gave them the second half and told them it was from Mr Temple, when in actual fact he gave me this one to pass onto them." He folded his fingers over the antimetal again and resumed his pacing. "It's not enough, though, Francesca. I don't want us to put our plans in motion until we have more pieces."

"How many more? There were only five to begin with."

The professor slipped the antimetal back into his pocket and resumed his seat. "At least three," he said after a moment's pause. "I was told, however, that Professor Cutter will not allow us to have another unless we give very conclusive evidence that it will directly benefit the anomaly operation."

"How are we going to do that?" Francesca asked.

Ross shook his head. "We're not."

"Then how will we persuade him to give up the rest of the samples?"

Ross gave her a meaningful stare. "We're not."

Francesca looked confused for a moment longer, then a smile spread across her face as she understood. "I see," she said with a nod. "When?"

"As soon as possible. Can you do it?"

Francesca's smile only widened. "Of course."


	8. Having You Around

**ABBY **  
She could hear Connor coming after her, but she ignored him as best she could as she made her way to her office. She didn't know exactly what it was she'd do once she actually got there; all she knew was that she wanted to slam the door in Connor Temple's face and never see him again. "Abby, wait!" he shouted as they rounded a corner. She was practically running to get away from him. What the hell had he been thinking? She'd known he'd liked her as more than a friend for a long time now, but after what had happened she wasn't even sure that they could remain friends anymore. He'd accused her boyfriend of doing something inexcusable in what had then been revealed to be a blatant lie.

"Wait!"

She reached her office door and whirled around to face him. "No," she hissed, her voice full of venom. "You wait, Connor. Just what the hell d'you think you were playing at?"

"But I –"

"You what? There is nothing that you can possibly say that will make me forgive you." Abby threw her office door open and stepped inside. "Don't you dare follow me."

"Abby, I –"

"No." Abby glared at him with a fury she had felt only a few times in her life. "Stay away from me."

She slammed the door.

* * *

Once inside, Abby glared around at her office and realised that she couldn't stay there. The laptop on her desk, the papers scattered around, even the posters tacked up on the walls screamed work and she didn't want to focus on work right now. What she really wanted to do was beat up Connor Temple, but he was too much of an easy target in so many ways. Abby threw herself down at her desk and glared at the opposite wall. She was beyond anger; briefly she considered going back to the flat and doing some kickboxing to get it out, before she decided she would go to 5pm yoga instead.

She went by the flat to grab her mat and supplies, tossing it haphazardly into the back seat of the Mini before speeding off. Driving a little too fast through the streets of London, Abby turned the radio up until it was poundingly loud. She wasn't even sure why she had been so furious with Connor; it wasn't as though she'd believed him for one second, after all. Jones may have been an incorrigible flirt, but he was loyal to her. There was no way he would do such a thing. Connor was clearly mistaken. It wouldn't have been the first time that he'd misread social cues, though this went far beyond the usual not recognising sarcasm.

At yoga, Abby poured her whole self into the routine. It was magical, exactly what she'd needed. She felt her fury at Connor slowly melt away into insignificance; she was still angry about what he had done, but it didn't consume her every thought. She could feel herself relax as she went slowly through the movements, until she felt better than she had in a long time. It had been a while since she'd been to yoga; her muscles stretched more reluctantly than usual, but she still managed to hold all the poses. By the time the class was done, her body was sore, but her brain was totally relaxed.

She gathered up her things, bade goodbye to the lady who took the class, and headed back to her car. Instead of throwing everything into the front of the Mini, she flipped open the boot. Unfortunately, it was already more than half occupied; a large garbage bag that she didn't recognise was taking up most of the space. Abby shoved the yoga mat into the small amount of space that remained, then tugged the bag open and pulled out a battered book: Star Wars: Dark Empire. "Connor," she muttered, remembering; it was the bag of stuff he'd left in her flat when he'd moved out. She was constantly forgetting to return it to him.

Curiosity overcame her and she opened the bag properly to begin searching through its contents. Comic books, DVDs, one or two video games (though not many, because he'd been sure to grab most of those)... anything and everything that could possibly be considered geeky was in there in one form or another. There was the odd pair of shorts shoved in there as well, but Abby did her best to avoid getting too close to those. All in all, the contents of the bag were really quite ordinary. She was just about to close it all back up again when a glint of metal caught her eye.

It was a small, silver USB stick. The cap had fallen off, exposing the plug, but it was otherwise utterly unremarkable. Abby ran her thumb over the metal surface, then glanced into the front of her car, where her laptop was. A moment later Abby closed up the bag of Connor's things, shut the boot, and began the short drive home. Jones' car was parked outside the flat; she pulled the Mini up behind it, but didn't get out. Instead she reached across to the passenger seat, pulled her laptop out of her bag, opened it on her lap, and plugged in the USB.

When it popped up on her screen, Abby was struck by a pang of guilt. Telling herself that it was Connor's own fault for leaving it lying around, she began to scroll through the various folders. She skipped over the less interesting ones – _Research, Music, Screenshots, Games_ – and paused at the folder entitled _Important_.

Feeling her heart beat a little faster, she double-clicked. It opened to reveal a single subfolder: _Abby_.

That subfolder contained only one file, an untitled Word document. Abby stared at it for a long moment before she double-clicked on it, and she was utterly surprised when it opened up. Abby had never been much of a computer person – she was too busy playing sport or caring for animals to spend hours in front of a screen – but Connor had taught her the basics while he'd been living with her, and rule one was to always password-lock anything that you didn't want other people to read. She supposed it was different on a USB; maybe Connor always used to carry it around with him, and hadn't expected anyone to find it, much less go through his files. Pushing away her guilt yet again, Abby tilted the screen and began to read.

_Dear Abby_, the document began.

_I know you're never going to read this, but I still feel a bit weird typing it all out. I've never been one for the whole diary-keeping thing, and I have no idea where this is really going... so right now I'm just going to label it 'practice'. Practice at talking about how I feel. Or typing about it. Or something. I'm rambling. Good start, Connor. Okay, let me start again._

_Dear Abby, _

_As I type this, I'm sitting on the couch in our flat. Technically it's your flat, but I've been living here for a while now and I do a lot of the washing-up and stuff like that, so I've started to think of it as ours. (I have to remember not to say it to your face, though, because I'm sure you'd give me even more of the chores to do if I did.) Rex is flying around somewhere, but don't worry, the windows and doors are most definitely closed. You're at a yoga class; I offered yet again to help you out with your stretching, but you refused. Can't think why. _

_Yes, that was sarcasm. Okay, here's the truth: you know I like you, and you don't exactly like me back. I mean _like_ like, you know, not just as mates. And I'm not expecting you to like like me or anything – you have a boyfriend, and that's cool. I'm just happy that we're good friends. I mean, if I'm being honest, I'd tell you that I really want us to be more than just good friends... and I guess I'm allowed to be honest, since you're never going to read this. _

_So here: I really want us to be more than just good friends. I think your boyfriend's a bit of a tool and even though he's way more attractive and athletic than me, I think I would be just as good a boyfriend to you as he is. I understand you, Abby. I know about your fear of spiders. I know what happened with your dad. I know how you like your coffee in the morning and what all of your lizards eat and how much you like karaoke even if you'll never admit it. Abby, I would never, ever want to impose anything on you, but I want you to know: if things with Jones ever go a bit pear-shaped, I'll be here for you. I'll be here even if things with him go great and you end up married with four kids and a house in the country. I'm here for you no matter what. I know I'm a bit of a geek and I play Xbox late into the night sometimes and I don't always dry the dishes before I put them away, but if you ever need something, all you have to do is ask. _

_And... I guess, since you're never going to read any of this, I can type this without worrying that you're going to beat me up: Abby, I love you. I've loved you ever since I came into your flat with news about a creature sighting and you weren't wearing any pants. No, wait, that didn't come out how I meant it, and if I hadn't promised myself I wouldn't backspace any of this I would have deleted this whole paragraph already, if not the entire document. But it's out there now: I love you and I would do anything for you. I've known it for a while. I know you'll never read this, but I needed to type it out anyway; you know better than anyone how bad I am at interacting with girls, and I could never have said it in any other way. _

_So, that's it. I don't expect you to ever love me the same way, but like I said already, I'll be here for you regardless. Whatever happens, I'll always be here for you. _

_Oops, I can hear your car. I'd better go – I promised I'd clean the microwave while you were out. There's enough melted cheese in there to feed Rex for a week. Must have reheated one too many pizzas, I guess. _

_I'll say it again before I leave: I love you. I know you'll never read this, but I like saying it all the same. _

_Yours always, _

_Connor_

Abby slowly closed the laptop, staring out the windscreen of the car. She became aware of the fact that her face was wet, but it wasn't until she touched her cheek that she realised it was with tears. Abby, who never cried, yanked the USB out of her laptop and stared at it for a few moments before she shoved it in her pocket and began the long and difficult process of forgetting about it altogether. Checking her reflection in the rear-view mirror, she grimaced at the way her mascara had run, leaving dark tracks trailing down from her eyes towards her cheekbones. She gathered up the rest of her things and headed into the flat; she would deal with it later.

"Abby?" When she heard the shout, her first, ridiculous thought was, Connor? It was impossible, of course – he no longer lived here. The voice belonged to Alex, whom Abby had completely forgotten about. Knowing that he would make a fuss about how she'd been crying, Abby called back, "Just been to yoga! I need a shower." She dumped her things outside the bathroom and disappeared into it, locking the door behind her.

Despite having only read the document once, words from Connor's "letter" had burned themselves into Abby's brain. _I understand you, Abby... __if you ever need something, all you have to do is ask... I'll always be here for you. _And the one he had said over and over again, the one that she couldn't put out of her head no matter how hard she tried:_ I love you. _It was a phrase she heard from Alex several times a day, but it sounded different coming from Connor. Even if he hadn't actually said it to her, she had read the letter in his voice, and it was almost the same as hearing it say it himself.

Connor loved her. Had she already known that? He hadn't exactly gone to great lengths to hide it from everyone; it was obvious from the way that he looked at and spoke to her that he liked her as more than just a friend. But there were things about this that didn't add up. He'd sworn in his letter that he would remain close to her even if she remained in a relationship with Alex, so why had he tried to break the two of them up by lying about Jones and Francesca McKay? It had to have been an honest mistake. Connor wasn't trying to be vindictive, so he must have just somehow gotten it wrong.

But the biggest question of all was why Connor had been so careless with the USB on which the document was stored. He'd made it quite clear in the beginning of the letter that he didn't intend to let anyone read it, much less Abby herself. If he really had meant for that to be the case, surely he would have taken better care of it. He should have put a password lock on the document and kept the USB somewhere safe, or at least asked Abby for it when it became clear to him that he'd left it in the flat. The fact that he had done neither of these things only made Abby anxious. As far as she could tell, there were only two explanations for it: either he didn't care about what was written enough to keep the USB safe...

...or he'd secretly intended for her to read it after all.


	9. To Predict and Contain

**NICK  
**"Where is he?" Stephen demanded yet again.

Cutter glanced over at him from the passenger seat and shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he's in the middle of the season finale of Star Trek or something."

Stephen rolled his eyes. "Would it kill him to be on time?" he asked rhetorically. "I thought he was supposed to be sucking up to me so I wouldn't kick him out of the house."

Cutter grinned but didn't reply. They were waiting in the car for Connor, who was nowhere to be seen and already very late. Cutter hadn't seen him since the anomaly earlier that morning; he assumed that Connor had been busy with finishing the report for Lester that Cutter had yet again refused to write. Regardless of how behind Connor was on the report, Cutter knew that he wouldn't stay behind working overtime just to write something up for Lester, unless the man was practically holding him hostage. Since hostage-taking wasn't really Lester's style, Cutter assumed that Connor had gotten caught up in research.

"There he is," Stephen said, pointing through the windscreen. Connor was making his way slowly out of the building towards the car, head bent, hands shoved in his pockets. Stephen stuck his head out the window to yell at him. "Connor, we don't have all night. Move it!"

Connor looked up when he heard the shout, but he didn't bother to quicken his pace. Stephen looked ready to shout again, but Cutter reached over and touched his arm. "Don't," he said quietly. As Connor drew closer, it could be seen that he had been crying.

"Sorry I'm late," Connor muttered as he pulled open the door of the car and swung in.

"Everything all right?" Cutter asked as Stephen threw the car into drive and sped off.

Connor nodded. "Fine," he answered, in a voice that clearly said no, everything was not all right, and no, he didn't want to talk about it. Cutter, who assumed that he wouldn't have known how to help even if he were to ask, didn't press the issue, and they drove home in silence.

* * *

The following morning, Cutter was seated in the conference room with the small team of chemists and biologists who had been working on his genetic sequence, staring at a diagrammatic representation of every strand of DNA that made up Nick Cutter. It was almost surreal to think that everything that made him who he was could be extracted from a vial of blood and turned into a set of squiggly lines, projected onto a white wall while a team of scientists droned on about sugars and carbon bonds. Professor Cutter was not a stupid man – he'd graduated from university with First Class Honours at the top of his year – but even he was struggling with how advanced all of it was. Every one of the scientists was practically buzzing with eagerness, all wanting to talk over each other to discuss their various findings.

Eventually they got over their initial excitement of being a part of the project and got to the important part. "We think we've identified an abnormality in a certain section of your sequence," one of the biologists began. "We can't be sure – we'll have to do further tests – but it involves a possible receptor of a magnetosensitive flavoprotein called cryptochrome. Cryptochrome is responsible for maintaining circadian rhythms in plants and animals, and in some species of birds and flies it is also thought to aid magnetoception."

"The sensing of magnetic fields," Cutter said with a nod.

"Exactly. The function of cryptochrome in humans isn't well-known as of yet, but we're hoping that our research will find a positive correlation between levels of the protein, possible magnetoception, and the possession of the strange ability you term the 'aura'..."

Like Connor's meetings with the lab team, this one seemed to drag on for hours. Cutter did his best to keep up as the scientists made their explanations and traded ideas back and forth as to where their research should go next. Eventually it was decided to bring in the antimetal team to discuss their findings as a larger group. Cutter was dispatched to find them.

He found Connor in his office, sitting on one of the beanbags and staring at the television, which wasn't even switched on. Cutter raised an eyebrow as he knocked and entered. "Shouldn't you be working?"

Connor flinched at his voice and turned around quickly. "Professor! Hi. Yeah, I was just... um..." He glanced around for something that he could pick up and use to look busy, but his laptop was sitting on his desk and the only thing anywhere near to him was a comic book. "Sorry."

"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Cutter asked gruffly. "You hardly strung a sentence together last night."

Connor shrugged. "It's nothing. Just... girl stuff. You wouldn't understand." Cutter was trying to decide whether or not to take offence at that when Connor suddenly burst out, "She doesn't believe me! Even after everything I've done for her, she takes Jones' word over mine and thinks I'm lying. Why would I lie to her? I hate the guy, but even I wouldn't make up something like that. All I wanted was to help her out, and I've screwed up completely. She's never going to talk to me again."

He'd been right; Cutter didn't understand. He tried his best, though. "Abby?" he guessed.

"Yep." Connor punched the beanbag next to him and sighed. "I don't really want to talk about it. It's not exactly my business. I just... care about her, and I don't want her to get hurt."

That Cutter understood. He nodded in sympathy.

Connor gave a meaningless shrug and stood up, picking up the comic book and returning it to its pile. "Sorry. Did you want me for something?"

"Yes," Cutter answered, glad for the subject change. "The group in charge of working on my DNA sequence thinks they've found something that could be useful. They want to meet with the antimetal research team to co-ordinate their findings. Can you gather them up and meet us in the conference room?"

Connor chuckled darkly. "I'll do my best, but they might not want to listen to me."

Cutter quirked a brow. "What did you do?"

"Interrupted some sort of secret meeting between Ross and Francesca," Connor replied. "I don't know what they were doing, but they got really mad at me. Francesca doesn't like me anyway, and Ross sort of looks down at everyone who doesn't have a master's in physics like he does."

"I had noticed that," Cutter said. He didn't often deal directly with the only other professor at CARI, but during their few interactions he had gotten the sense that Ross viewed his chosen field of study, evolutionary zoology, with some scorn. Typical of physicists, really, to always be looking down their noses at other scientists. Just because they studied space dust and questions that had arisen before the universe had begun didn't mean they were superior. Cutter would have liked to have seen Professor Ross describe the evolution of mankind; he probably didn't know anything beyond the fact that they'd always been made up of atoms.

"I'll try, though. Meet you in half an hour?"

"Okay." Cutter nodded. "And Connor?"

"Hm?"

"Don't worry about Abby," Cutter said. "She'll come round. She's a clever kid, and she likes you a lot. Whatever happened, I'm sure she won't stay mad at you for long."

Connor shrugged again, turning away.

"See you in the conference room," Cutter said, and exited the office.

* * *

Professor Cutter had never considered himself particularly socially intelligent, but even he could sense the tension between Connor and the two members of the lab team that he had mentioned before. By a stroke of bad luck Francesca had ended up sitting on Connor's left, and the frosty glances she sent his way every time he spoke were enoughto make Cutter feel uncomfortable all the way on the other side of the table.

The DNA research team, led by the young biologist Maisie, spoke first, firstly giving a brief outline of their work and then describing the possible abnormality they had located. Afterwards it was the turn of the lab team; Professor Ross commanded that discussion. They then took turns going back and forth, arguing, ripping holes in the other team's points and insisting that each knew better than the other. Connor and Cutter exchanged exasperated glances, until eventually the latter smacked his hand down on the table for silence.

"Listen," he said, "this childish bickering is getting us nowhere. You are a team; act like one. Our priority here is to understand the antimetal, the aura, and their connections to the anomalies. If anyone has a useful, constructive idea as to how to go about doing that, feel free to voice it now. Otherwise, you can keep your snarky comments to yourselves."

Ignoring the smirk on Ross' face, Cutter sat back and looked around at the rest of the team. It was Maisie who eventually broke the silence. "What if we isolated the defect in Professor Cutter's genes, and developed a test based only on that?" she suggested softly. "Then we could experiment with the members of staff who tested positive and –"

"– use their blood to attempt to open the anomalies," Francesca finished.

The table erupted at that, everyone talking over one another at the idea. This time Cutter stood up to command the conversation; the legs of his chair scraped against the floor, and everyone turned to look at him in surprise. "No," he said flatly. "The last time someone used blood to open an anomaly, a vicious future predator came through and people died. That's not happening again."

"How do you suggest we test for the aura, then?" Francesca demanded, blue eyes flashing in her freckled face. "Unless we know for sure that the 'abnormality' in your DNA is the key, we can't be certain that the test is conclusive."

Cutter nodded slowly, staring at the wall, where the projector was displaying a picture of the antimetal. "Opening anomalies isn't the only thing it can do," he said. "Helen told us that it could close them, too. The next time one of them opens, we can use someone for whom the test was positive, and see if they can close it."

"And if they can," Connor chipped in, "we can conclude that the test works."

"Exactly." Cutter nodded, an eager smile overtaking his face. "This way, there's no risk of letting creatures through an anomaly we open, but we can also figure out whether or not the test can be used to determine if somebody has the aura." He looked around at the assembled scientists and was pleased to see his excitement mirrored on many of their faces. "Maisie, how long will it take for you to develop the test?"

The young biologist, blushing at the attention, conferred briefly with the older woman on her right before turning back to Cutter. "Not too long," she replied. "A few days. Maybe a week."

"Good. Let me know as soon as it's done," Cutter ordered. "When it is, I want it administered to every blue-eyed member of staff and a list made up of candidates who tested positive. Once that's done, all we need is an anomaly to open up, and then we'll know for sure." Their eyes all turned to the picture of the antimetal on the wall. "All we have to do is wait..."


	10. A Serious Disciplinary Offence

CLAUDIA

She found him in his office, standing beside his desk, turning a piece of antimetal over and over in his fingers. So intrigued was Nick Cutter by the strange material that he didn't even notice she was there until she cleared her throat and knocked on his door. When he looked up, she was struck by a sudden sense of deja vu: she had visited him in another office once, when he had been playing golf with the bone of a dinosaur. She had told him about how she hadn't been sleeping well, and had jokingly accused him of sexual harassment. In many ways, nothing had changed. There was irony in that.

"Claudia Brown," he said.

Nothing had changed. "Yes," she said.

He closed his fingers into a fist over the antimetal and shut the drawer, moving out from behind his desk to address her. "What do you need?"

There it was. Claudia had prepared for this moment; she launched into the speech she had all planned out in her head before she could think about it too much. "I've been thinking about what happened between us," she said, urging the blush away from her cheeks, not quite confident enough of herself to say the name of the act itself. "It was wrong, and it never should have happened. I'm sorry."

He simply looked at her. "What are you apologising for?"

"For – my part in it." She couldn't meet his gaze. "I – we shouldn't have done that. We can't..." And her plan, her prepared speech, all was falling to pieces now that she was here and he was looking at her with those very blue eyes in the office where they had kissed each other only months ago. "I'm engaged, Nick," she said hopelessly, and it would almost have worked, had she not slipped up and called him by his first name – betrayed, in that instant, all her feelings laid bare for him to see, by a single word. He would have noticed; she knew he would have. He was a brilliantly intelligent man, Nick Cutter, perceptive to a fault for all his flaws. He claimed to be hopeless with women and people in general, but she knew that he could read her. He could not have missed something so obvious as that.

"So it can't," she pushed on, before he could say anything, "it can't happen again. Okay?"

He didn't agree; he didn't argue. He just looked at her and she could feel herself coming apart beneath his gaze. "Cutter," she snapped – _if he so much as smiles at me I will leave and never come back_ – "would you at least do me the courtesy of answering? Surely you must agree that it was a mistake."

The moment the words left her mouth she was bracing herself for his response, but he didn't reply to her question. Instead, he simply asked, "Have you told him yet?"

"Who?"

"Your fiancé."

"Told him what?"

He made a gesture that attempted to encompass all of CARI as well as the two of them and everything they had shared. "About this," he said. "Your work. Me. Us."

_Of course not_, she thought furiously, glaring at him. "No, I haven't. He knows I work for the government, but I can hardly tell him anything more than that, can I?" He shrugged and turned away from her, and thus she discovered that the only thing worse than him looking at her was him not looking at her. "I _can't_," she insisted, but he remained facing away.

"Fine." She left the office before he could call out for her to wait – not that he would. _Well, that went well_, she thought_. So much for talking this whole situation out rationally_. At first Claudia contemplated going to see Dr Shepard, but she quickly changed her mind. It made sense to see a psychologist for chronic nightmares and insomnia and other things she had no control over that adversely impacted her job. It was another thing altogether to complain about how she _felt_ about someone, as though she were a teenaged girl instead of a woman who was mature and who was also engaged. Instead, Claudia went to her office. She had reports to file and emails to forward to Lester.

_Whatever life throws at you, you can rely on one thing: there will always be more paperwork_, Claudia thought. Resigning herself to a mind-numbingly dull afternoon, she sat down in front of her computer. Just before she switched it on, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the black monitor and winced. It was obvious that she hadn't been sleeping well; there were dark shadows under her eyes that no amount of make-up would hide. _These dreams have to stop. I look like I haven't slept in a week_. Pushing the thought away as best she could, Claudia pulled her inbox up on her computer and sighed. It was overflowing with dozens of unread messages from different CARI staff members. Propping her chin on her hand, she began to gradually sift through them, trying hard not to fall asleep – or worse, let her mind drift to thoughts of Nick Cutter.

But no matter how hard she tried, boredom and exhaustion from lack of sleep combined, and – for the second time in her life – Claudia drifted off at her desk. At first she simply slept, her body desperate for the rest it struggled to get during the night, but soon she was dreaming again. This time she was stumbling her way down a dark corridor while a flock of shrieking pteranodons and the laughter of Helen Cutter chased after her. There was somebody running next to her, and she reached out to take his hand, but just as she felt his fingers brush against hers she was suddenly jolted into wakefulness by a knock at her door.

Cutter's name was on her lips as she jerked her head up from where it had been resting on her arms, but she bit back the urge to cry it out. "Who is it?" she called instead, trying frantically to arrange her hair into something resembling order.

"James Lester." The clipped tones of her boss would have been impossible to mistake even if he hadn't introduced himself. This time it was a swear word that Claudia bit back as she stood up to answer the door.

"What is it, sir?" she asked. "I passed on your message to Connor that you were still waiting on last month's report. Has he not sent it through?"

"No, he's sent it," Lester replied. Not meeting Claudia's gaze, he adjusted his tie; now that she looked at him closely, she saw that he actually looked quite uncomfortable.

"Is everything all right?" she prompted hesitantly.

Lester cleared his throat. "Yes, quite. Well... not exactly. I've come to, uh, talk about you, Claudia."

"Sir?"

"Don't make me repeat myself. I am... that is, I was just wondering how you are... doing."

Interpersonal concern from James Lester? If Claudia hadn't been so mortified, she would have gasped in shock. "I'm fine, sir," she said firmly, suddenly very conscious of how her hair must be sitting and the shadows underneath her eyes. "Why the sudden concern?" Her mind was racing. Maybe Dr Shepard had said something to him; maybe the psychologist had gone so far as to suggest that Claudia was unfit for work.

She suddenly recalled a conversation she'd had with Cutter, when he'd asked why she didn't take time off. She'd replied that if she did, the place would fall apart, but it was more than that. Somehow, the anomaly project had become her life. She hated the dangerous aspects of it, all the things that could – and did – go wrong, but at the same time, she couldn't imagine being without it. It was the only thing that gave her life any flavour, any excitement. Besides that, she would miss her colleagues, the friendships they had formed over the years. She would miss the adorable, clever Connor, and the snappish-but-undeniably-competent James Lester. And, if she were being completely honest with herself, she would miss Nick Cutter, no matter how far she tried to distance herself from him.

"Oh, no reason," Lester said quickly, drawing Claudia back to the present. "Only... I have noticed... you've seemed a little distracted recently. Is... Is everything all right? With your fiancé, perhaps?"

Again, only her embarrassment and the uncomfortable truth of the situation prevented Claudia from reacting to Lester's stammered, awkward attempts at concern with shock or amusement. "Everything's fine," she repeated, aware of the blush forming on her cheeks. "I can assure you, sir, there's nothing the matter."

"Excellent," Lester replied briskly, clapping his hands together. "Excellent. Well, I'll be off, then." He quickly turned away from Claudia and quickly stepped away from her office. Just as she moved to close the door, he stopped and looked back to face her again. "Take care of yourself, Claudia," he said, the awkwardness gone from his tone. She nodded, and he turned again to walk down the rest of the corridor.

As she closed the door to her office behind him, Claudia could only sigh.

She knew that she ought to be grateful for Lester's concern. On some level she was – and not a little surprised that he was even capable of suck an emotion – but mostly she was simply ashamed. More than anything else, Claudia had tried all through her life to maintain professionalism. She'd entered her job at a young age and had worked hard to prove herself to her peers in the civil service even before she'd joined the Centre for Anomaly Research and Investigation. Now, even the suggestion that she was no longer fit for work was enough to make her feel as though she was failing somehow.

_Don't be ridiculous, Claudia_, she told herself. _You're just going through a rough patch at the moment. That's all. Once these dreams stop, you'll be just fine_.

It would, of course, have been much easier to believe if she had only known _how_ to stop them.

* * *

Just when she'd finally begun to get into a rhythm with sorting through her emails, Claudia's mobile rang. She quickly fished it out of her bag and felt her heart give a jolt when the screen identified the caller as her fiancé, Jem. The truth was, Lester's question had hit closer to home than he'd realised. He could not have known, but ever since the day when Jem had caught Claudia calling Nick's name in her sleep, things hadn't been the same between them. Jem had been more reserved, less certain of himself, and Claudia, with her lack of sleep, had also retreated inwards. Suddenly they didn't talk half as much as they used to; they seemed to have nothing to talk about. The secretive nature of Claudia's job had never been an issue before, but suddenly it had become one. Now over dinner they chased conversations about the weather around in circles, and then watched television in silence before going to bed early.

"Hello?" she murmured, flipping open her phone to take the call.

"Hey, beautiful. It's Jem," her fiancé replied, rather unnecessarily. "Are you busy?"

"Just answering a few emails. Nothing pressing. Why?"

"Well..." Jem began, drawing out the word as though it were a precursor to an enormous bombshell or an important secret, "I was just thinking... Why don't we go out tonight? It's been a while since we've done anything other than eat at home, and as much as I know you love my cooking, I thought a change might be nice."

Claudia was quiet for a few moments as she thought this through. She was always reluctant to make plans with Jem ahead of time, because she'd learned the hard way that anomalies had a habit of popping up when you least wanted them to. Whenever they did, she had to give an uncomfortable excuse, because the alternative – telling the truth – was impossible. Today, though, she felt as though she owed it to Jem. He was right; it _had_ been a while since they'd eaten out, and a change would be nice.

"All right," she said, smiling into the phone. "Did you want to go anywhere in particular?" They tossed around a few restaurant names before settling on one and agreeing to meet there at six. "I'll see you tonight, Jem. I love you. Bye." The smile still on her face, Claudia hung up and glanced towards the door, praying that an anomaly alert wasn't about to ring out over the speakers.


End file.
